UNITED NATIONS –
Former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, died on Tuesday. He was
93.
The 15-member U.N. Security
Council observed a minute’s silence after the death was announced on Tuesday by
Venezuelan U.N. Ambassador Rafael Dario Ramirez Carreno, head of the Security
Council for February.
An Egyptian, Boutros-Ghali served
as U.N. chief from 1992 to 1996. He died at Al Salam Hospital in Cairo on
Tuesday, an official at the hospital said.
As the United Nations’ first
secretary-general from Africa, Boutros-Ghali associated himself with the famine
in Somalia and organized the first massive U.N. relief operation in the Horn of
Africa nation.
But success eluded him there and
elsewhere as the United Nations tottered in an increasingly disorderly
post-communist world, with the world body and the big Security Council powers
underestimating the deep animosity behind many conflicts.
Boutros-Ghali, who had a
reputation for being proud and prickly, also took on the daunting task of
reorganizing the U.N. bureaucracy by slashing posts and demoting officials at a
pace that earned him the nickname “the pharaoh.”
But Washington had wanted him to
do more to reform the body and the U.S. Congress would not pay more than $1
billion in back dues while he remained at the helm.
Many diplomats suggested he was abandoned
by U.S. President Bill Clinton’s Democratic administration during an election
year to pre-empt criticism from Republicans deeply aggressive to Boutros-Ghali
and the United Nations.
In 1996, 10 Security Council
members led by African states sponsored a resolution backing him for a second
five-year term but the United States vetoed Boutros-Ghali when his endorsement
came up for a vote.
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